


All I have left

by Gay_as_fuck



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6363886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gay_as_fuck/pseuds/Gay_as_fuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Anakin told him was right, the sand of Tatooine is course and rough but he has to learn to live with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I have left

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing

19 Years of sand and sun wears him down until he looks and feels older than he would have liked if Luke ever meets him. His face sags in a way that makes him look weathered, it's not something he would have been okay with when he was younger. His joints are stiffer and it gets a little harder to get up out of bed each day, though he thinks that last part isn't just because of his old age. 

He doesn't have a mirror in his house, they're hard to get when one doesn't have much income. All he does is sell some of his old supplies from when he was a Jedi to the people in Mos Eisley. If they ask why he'd answer that he got them off the body of a dead Jedi, no one asks though. He knows Anakin would have hated to spend anymore time on this cursed planet, that's why he whisked Luke here.

He tells himself that life here isn't to bad, it's not that lonely. He knows he's lying to himself because as the years drag on he falls back into his memories of his old friends and the old order. He is stuck with memories of what used to be and part of him dreads the pain that comes from him. He tells himself he doesn't leave the planet because he wants to keep Luke safe. But he knows that Luke could never have been safer. He stays because the memories here are the only things he has left of his old friends. 

He's made peace with the fact that his friends, his family, are dead and gone. He knows that the body Anakin once had is hurting the universe but he'd like to imagine that the Anakin he knew is dead. He understands that it is Anakin who's Darth Vader, he'd just like to pretend that it's someone different and that Anakin is dead; it's just easier that way.

He's only seen Luke three times while he's been here, the first was when Luke was just born. His uncle and aunt had taken him with open arms and smiled widely at him, they had told him to come when ever he felt like it, that they would be glad to let him see Luke. He wished he'd followed them up more on this offer but it's a long travel across the dune sea and even then he felt old. He has no speeder to travel with which makes life on Tatooine much harder than it could be.

He worried himself over what Luke might call him. He wasn't Obi-wan any more and even though people called him Ben now it didn't fit. He didn't want to be anything but a friend and mentor to Luke. People didn't talk to him and he lived near no one so he resigned himself to being nameless in his head. He no longer called himself Obi-wan or Ben, he simply was. 

The second time he sees Luke is when the boy is four. He makes his way through the tough landscape and past a Sand People camp to find that Luke's uncle and aunt are no longer welcoming. They let him in with uneasy smiles and drag him away from Luke who he loves like his own son, though he knows that he is not the father Anakin would have been.

Beru tells him that they can't have him visiting any more, that they fear Luke will grow up like his father. Owens gives him a small sum of money and some food for the travel back, telling him he can get a ride with some Jawas. They both leave him with the parting words that if he comes back, they will not open the door. 

He spends 15 years almost completely alone in the sand, he learns how to do things only the natives know. Sometimes he offers help to those who come out to ask him for advice or those who are lost in the sand. His voice grows cracked from use to the point where when he gets to use it he is surprised by how it sounds. He gets used to things he hated when he first came here. He learns how to live with all of the sand, a constantly dry throat, and being alone.

When he was a Jedi he would talk and joke, he could hardly spend a whole day alone. His voice was something that would light up every hall and ship he traveled in. There used to be nothing he hated more than silence and being alone. On Tatooine those things become his life.

The third time he sees Luke is when the boy is 19 and coming after some runaway droids. Luke gets attacked by sand people and he has to come save the boy he promised to keep safe. When Luke wakes up and looks at him there is nothing but confusion in his eyes. He is wary and confused, two things that break his heart. He never wanted the boy to look up at him and not know that he was loved and safe. Over these 19 years he knows he has been no good at showing it.

When he first landed he had entertained the idea of keeping Luke with himself but he didn't have an income and it's even worse now with him barely being able to feed himself. But when he meets Luke that third time he makes up his mind to tell the boy everything. Luke takes the news just as he had expected, with wonder in his eyes and then Luke asked one question, one about his father.

The story Luke got was the one that had been ingrained into the old man's head; Darth Vader killed his father. He didn't want Luke to turn out anything like his father had in the end. He wanted Luke to keep the joy and hope his friend had used but not the pain. And if Luke didn't know that Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader it was all for the better.

When they travel back to Beru and Owens he can sense a pain in the force. He knows that the two are dead along with the Jawa, he can't make his mouth say it though. They stop at the Jawa and only then do the words come out. Luke rushes off to go see what will be a burned house and two dead lovers. He doesn't follow Luke, or make Luke stop with the force so he can get on the speedster. He doesn't think he can handle another dead body.

When Luke comes back, his blue eyes are damp with tears and latches onto him. The two hold each other close in the cold night air and though Luke doesn't know it this is the first time since his birth he has been held by this man.

The rest of their time together is a blur. In Luke he sees Anakin and is driven back to a memory at almost everything Luke does. Part of him hopes that he and Luke will grow close so that he sees Luke as Luke not Anakin. Han Solo is a strange man and so is his co-pilot. But he sees something in Han that tells him if he dies here the smuggler will take care of the boy.

He only sees Leia once in his life after her birth, and for a second he doesn't even know it's her. But he sees four people running as fast as their legs will carry them to a sorry excuse for a ship and knows that it's her. He lays his eyes on Leia and wishes that he could tell her that she seems so much like her mother. She's yelling at the boys to hurry up and with a blaster at her side she's a fantastic shot.

He has one last wish, that he could get to know them as more than shadows and promises of his old friends. As Vader comes up to him he knows that this is his last moments so he tells himself that he is dying with his brother at his side, and this is true.

He doesn't die as Obi-wan, because that man died the moment he landed on the desert planet Tatooine with a child tucked into his coat. He doesn't die as Old Ben because he never really was that man, and if he was that old hermit was left behind on Tatooine. 

He dies as no one, but he doesn't die alone and for that he is glad. Because for 19 long years of his life that had been his fear, and what kept him going. It did not fit him to waste away on a desert planet, though he looked the part. Yes his heart dried out on that rock but he made it here.

He dies at his brothers side as a new hope rushes to safety, they will be safe under his watch. He does not die alone, and he hopes that what's left of Anakin, what's left of his brother, knows that is all he ever wanted.


End file.
